Iceland holds referendum on Icesave repayment plan

Icelanders have gone to the polls to vote on paying the UK and Netherlands after the collapse of the Icesave bank, with a resounding "No" vote expected.

The British and Dutch governments want reimbursement for the 3.8bn euros (£3.4bn; $5.2bn) they paid out in compensation to customers in 2008.

Talks between the three countries broke down on Friday without agreement.

But the prime minister urged people to shun the referendum, saying better payment terms had been tabled.

Johanna Sigurdardottir said she would not vote herself as her government sought to continue the talks with Britain and the Netherlands.

Opinion polls suggest the majority of voters will reject the referendum. As of Saturday lunchtime, turnout appeared to be lower than in last year's general election.

Outside parliament in the capital Reykjavik, hundreds of protesters banged pots and waved banners reading "Icesave No! No! No!".

A "No" vote could put billions of dollars of loans from the International Monetary Fund and other countries at risk.

Finance Minister Steingrimur Sigfusson attempted to play down the significance of the referendum, called after President Olaf Ragnar Grimsson blocked the initial deal.

"It's of utmost importance that we don't over-interpret whatever message comes out of this," he said.

"We want to be perfectly clear that a 'No' vote does not mean we are refusing to pay. We will honour our obligations. To maintain anything else is highly dangerous for the economy of this country."

Partial results are expected shortly after polls close at 2200 GMT.

Referendum defended

The government had hoped to avoid the vote by agreeing a new repayment plan before the weekend.

Foreign Minister Ossur Skarphethinsson told Reuters news agency he expected a new Icesave deal "in the next weeks, perhaps sooner".

Britain and the Netherlands want the money as repayment for bailing out customers in the Icesave online bank, which folded in 2008 due to the global financial meltdown.

President Grimsson rejected suggestions the vote was meaningless, telling the BBC that a strong "No" would strengthen his country's hand.

"It's not a pointless exercise because the referendum, according to our constitution, is on whether the deal which the British and the Dutch insisted on at the end of last year, should remain in force as a law in this country," he said.

"It is encouraging that in the last few weeks the British and the Dutch have acknowledged that that deal, on which the referendum takes place, is an unfair deal and that is by itself a tremendous achievement by the referendum. So, after the vote today, which I believe will be a clear 'No' vote, we will be able to continue the negotiations."

Many Icelanders believe the plan should be rejected because they feel they are being penalised for the mistakes of the banking industry.

"I will vote 'No' simply because I disagree very strongly with us... having to shoulder this burden," Ingimar Gudmundsson, a lorry driver, told AFP news agency.

"We want to pay our debts but we want to do it without going bankrupt," Steinunn Ragnarsdottir, a pianist who voted in Reykjavik City Hall, told Reuters.

Britain accused

There is also anger against the UK for using anti-terrorist legislation to freeze Icesave assets in the country.

Arni Gunnarsson, a former Icelandic MP, told the BBC News website: "We have not forgotten how Britain used battleships against Iceland during the cod wars.

"We find this a very strange method of thanking the Icelandic people for sacrificing the lives of their seamen during World War II.

"The colonial attitude is still going strong. The UK should come to its senses."

The Reykjavik government approved the repayment plan last December but it was blocked by Mr Grimsson in January, which led to the referendum being called.

Ice deposits found at Moon's pole

This protective layer of soil could prevent blocks of pure ice from vaporising even in some areas which are exposed to sunlight, he explained.

In February, President Barack Obama cancelled the programme designed to return Americans to the Moon by 2020.

However, Dr Spudis said: "Now we can say with a fair degree of confidence that a sustainable human presence on the Moon is possible. It's possible using the resources we find there."

"The results from these missions, that we have seen in the last few months, are totally revolutionising our view of the Moon."

Robotic fleet

Chandrayaan-1 was India's contribution to the armada of unmanned spacecraft to have been launched to the Moon in recent years. Japan, Europe, China and the US have all sent missions packed with instruments to explore Earth's satellite in unprecedented detail.

In Nasa's LCROSS mission, a rocket and a probe were smashed into a large crater at the lunar south pole, kicking up water ice and water vapour.

Spectral measurements of material thrown up by the LCROSS impact indicate some of the water ice was in a crystalline form, rather than the "amorphous" form in which the water molecules are randomly arranged.
Artist's impression of LCROSS (Northrop Grumman)
Ice thrown up by the LCROSS impact was in a crystalline form

"There's not one flavour of water on the Moon, there's a range of everything from relatively pure ice all the way to adsorbed water," said the mission's chief scientist Anthony Colaprete, from Nasa's Ames Research Center.

"And here is an instance inside Cabeus crater where it appears we threw up a range of fine-grained particulates of near pure crystalline water ice."

Overall, results from recent missions suggest there could be several sources for lunar ice.

One important way for water to form is through an interaction with the solar wind, the fast-moving stream of particles that constantly billows away from the Sun.

Space radiation triggers a chemical reaction in which oxygen atoms already in the soil acquire hydrogen nuclei to make water molecules and the simpler hydrogen-oxygen (OH) molecule. This "adsorbed" water may be present as fine films coating particles of lunar soil.

In a cold sink effect, water from elsewhere on the lunar surface may migrate to the slightly cooler poles, where it is retained in permanently shadowed craters.

Scientists have also reported the presence of hydrocarbons, such as ethylene, in the LCROSS impact plume. Dr Colaprete said any hydrocarbons were likely to have been delivered to the lunar surface by comets and asteroids - another vital source of lunar water.

However, he added, some of these chemical species could arise through "cold chemistry" on interstellar dust grains accumulated on the Moon.

In addition to water, researchers have seen a range of other "volatiles" (compounds with low boiling points) in the impact plume, including sulphur dioxide (SO2).

The results from the Mini-Sar instrument are due to be published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The team is currently analysing results for craters at the Moon's south pole.

City removes trash cans, streetlights to save cash

If you come to a neighborhood park in Colorado Springs, plan on bringing your own trash bags.

To save money, the city has removed the trash cans.

Need to catch a bus? Don't try on evenings or weekends. The city has cut that service, too.

And when the sun goes down, Colorado Springs is going to look a little bit dimmer. Crews are removing a third of the city's streetlight to save money on electricity and light bulbs.

Watch city's PSA on streetlight deactivation

It's this conservative city's way of closing a $28.5 million budget gap.

"You can cry about the fiscal situation ... or you can take it as an opportunity to change, reinvent yourself and innovate and that's what were going to do in Colorado Springs," City Councilman Sean Paige said.
These aren't people trying to be lazy and live off the system.
--Brian Kates, community center director

Other governments are considering higher taxes to avoid such cutbacks, but in the state of Colorado, there is a taxpayers' bill of rights. It prevents state and city governments from raising taxes unless such a measure is approved by the voters.

"We put it on the ballot last fall, and they said 'no,' " said Paige, a Republican. "They declined to write the city a blank check, and they said, 'City, tighten your belts. We're tightening ours. You need to do the same.'

"We're going to respect that," he added. "I'm not going to cry about that."

It's not a new concept in Colorado Springs, touted on some Web sites as a "libertarian paradise." The city's garbage collection, zoo and philharmonic are all privately funded.

The city is even auctioning off its police helicopters on the Internet.

Want to place a bid?

The latest budget cuts could be felt at community centers like Meadows Park, which is bustling with after-school programs for kids, as well as exercise classes and hot meals for seniors.

Unless the center can find private funding, Colorado Springs is slated to shut it down at the end of March.

"I'm hoping that some sort of a miracle will happen so we can keep the centers open," said Sheryle Nix, 56.
Something's got to give.
--Chuck Fowler, City Committee chairman
RELATED TOPICS

    * Colorado Springs
    * National Economy

Every day, Nix eats a $2 lunch at the center because she can't afford to eat in a restaurant and has trouble preparing her own food.

"I have a traumatic brain injury, so this really helps keep me on schedule to eat lunch," she explained.

Jeanie Schweitzer, 55, returned to Colorado Springs to take care of her grandmother Elsie, who suffered a stroke. She brings Elsie to the center to get her out of the house.

"I don't think they should be shutting it down. There should be enough money," Schweizer said. "It's not that much in the big picture to keep it open."

The center is a lifeline for parents who work and cannot pick their kids up after school ends in the afternoon.

Lindon Jackson, who is 13, has been coming to the Meadows Park after-school program since she was 3. When asked what she'll do if the center shuts down, she said, "Nothing."

"I'd just be home doing nothing."

Whether the government should continue funding Meadows Park and other community centers like it strikes at the heart of the political argument over the role of government, particularly during an economic downturn.

"The model of governments, from the federal government down to municipal governments, don't work anymore," according to Chuck Fowler, chairman of City Committee, an alliance of local businesspeople set up by Paige.

"They don't take in as much money. They can't possibly provide the same amount of services, pay their employees, pay their pensions. Something's got to give."

Fowler believes that the solution may be in weaning people off of government services.

"The larger the government is, the more conditioning with certain people that they don't need to take personal responsibility of their life," he said.

The budget cuts, according to Fowler, "could really recondition people's ideas about what government should be doing."

"Should it be doing all of these things, or should it really be focused on the vital things that clearly have a public interest?"

But Brian Kates, who runs Meadows Park Community Center, says the people affected by the government cutbacks "are pawns in the game."

"These aren't people trying to be lazy and live off the system," Kates said. "These are hard-working, intelligent and bright [people], and they're not asking for much. We're giving them just the very basics."

Man arrested in teen's disappearance

Police arrested a man Sunday in Escondido, California, in connection with the disappearance of a 17-year-old girl, according to the San Diego County sheriff.

Specific charges have not yet been filed against John Albert Gardner III, a 30-year-old registered sex offender, but Sheriff William Gore said at a news conference that physical evidence links Gardner to Chelsea King. He declined to elaborate.

King has been missing since Thursday when she failed to return home from an after-school run, according to CNN affiliate KGTV.

Gore said the investigation is ongoing.

"Our primary goal has been to find Chelsea King," he said. "We are continuing those efforts."

He added that authorities are holding out hope King will be found alive.

Kabul police officials quit; ordered to finish terror case

Kabul's police chief and chief of criminal investigations have submitted their resignations to the Afghan Interior Ministry, but the ministry ordered them to complete their probe into Friday's suicide attacks first, a ministry spokesman told CNN.

The ministry has not yet approved the resignations of Police Chief Abdul Rahman Rahman and investigations chief Abdul Ghafar Sayed Zada, spokesman Ezmary Bashari said.

The two were ordered to continue their investigation into deadly blasts that targeted foreigners in the capital city Friday. At least 17 people were killed and many others wounded.

Once the investigation into the bombings is complete, the minister of interior will make a decision on the resignations, Bashari said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attacks near the Safi Landmark Hotel in the Shahr-E-Naw neighborhood of Kabul. A number of government and United Nations offices are located there, as well as supermarkets, banks, diplomatic facilities and villas for well-to-do Afghans.

An employee at a Kabul hospital said eight Indians and one Pakistani were among the dead. Interior Ministry officials said an Italian was killed, and the Indian embassy said four Indians were killed.

The attack started with a suicide car bomb and four suicide bombers with explosive-laden vests, said Taliban spokesman Zaidullah Mujahid. Three of the bombers were killed, he said.

About 20 minutes later, a second large explosion occurred.

Chile's defense minister: Navy made mistake not sounding Tsunami Alarm

Chile's defense minister blamed the Navy on Sunday for not issuing a tsunami warning after an 8.8-magnitude earthquake rocked the South American country.

Such a forewarning could have allowed villagers on the coast to flee to higher ground.

Of the 708 reported dead as of Sunday afternoon, 541 died in Chile's Maule region, and 64 in the Bio Bio region, both on the coast.

"The truth even if it hurts (is that) a division of the Navy made a mistake," Minister Francisco Vidal told reporters.

After the quake struck Saturday morning, President Michelle Bachelet said a tsunami was unlikely.

More than 50 countries posted tsunami warnings, and Chilean authorities later realized that the large waves that slammed their country's coastal areas were tsunami-generated.

"What we saw between the sixth and the ninth region is a tsunami," Vidal said.

The Navy has in place an emergency system under which captains in each port may issue warnings when sea levels begin to rise -- even when the Navy itself does not.

Those port captains were the ones who eventually sounded the alarm, warning residents to flee, and helped prevent additional loss of lives.

"There was a mistake," Vidal said. "Fortunately, the system was activated."

By Monday, heavily populated parts of the country were without water and electricity, with reports of looting raising fears about security in some areas.

The nation's hardest-hit major city declared a nighttime curfew.
Video: Chile survivor stories
Video: Chile's growing desperation
Video: Looting reported after quake
RELATED TOPICS

    * Chile
    * Santiago (Chile)
    * South America
    * Earthquakes
    * Tsunamis

Calling the quake an "unthinkable disaster," Bachelet said a "state of catastrophe" in the worst-hit regions would continue, allowing for the restoration of order and speedy distribution of aid.

Looting broke out in parts of the country Sunday, including in hard-hit Concepcion in central coastal Chile, about 70 miles (115 km) from the earthquake's epicenter.

Desperate residents scrounged for water and supplies inside empty and damaged supermarkets. Authorities used tear gas and water cannons to disperse looters in some areas.

Chilean President-elect Sebastian Pinera, scheduled to be sworn in this month, warned Sunday that looting could grow worse with nightfall, calling for more government help in restoring order.

"Tonight we will experience a very, very difficult situation with public order, particularly in the area of Concepcion," Pinera told Radio Bio Bio.

In Concepcion, the capital of the Bio Bio region, there were not enough police in the city to control all those seeking food and supplies from the stores. Some became desperate as supermarkets closed and gasoline was unavailable, CNN Chile reported.

On Sunday afternoon, people were seen entering a mill looking for ingredients for bread. In the evening, a CNN team passed a dozen gas stations that were being looted, with people siphoning gas. There were military officers guarding a few gas stations, but few other signs of a government response.

Stealing broke out not just at the hands of desperate residents, but by others who were merely opportunistic, Concepcion Mayor Jacqueline Van Rysselberghe said.

"They are robbing everything," she said, asking for a stronger military response to restore calm.

Looters were targeting appliance and electronics stores, in addition to food, gas and emergency supplies, Van Rysselberghe said.

Some small-business owners resorted to protecting their shops with rifles and shotguns, she said. The current police force was inadequate, she said.

Concepcion, which with its adjacent sister city of Talcahuano has a population of 840,00, was under curfew from 9 p.m. Sunday to 6 a.m. Monday because of the looting.

The city government is distributing water from the central plaza.

Impact Your World: How you can help

Elsewhere in Concepcion on Sunday, a long line of people waited for food as military personnel stood watch. "I have nothing," one woman told CNN Chile. "I have no bread. I am a widow. I am 81 years old."

Throughout the city, collapsed walls of buildings exposed twisted rebar. Whole sides of buildings were sheared off, and at least two structures were on fire.

A rescue team from Santiago -- fresh from a stint in earthquake-ravaged Haiti -- worked round-the-clock to reach about 40 people still thought trapped in the ruins of a 15-story building.

The crew had successfully pulled out 28 people alive, but has had to work through the grief of recovering eight bodies.

Chile's Office of Emergency Management launched a C130 helicopter Sunday with a contingent of 40 specialized firefighters and 10 search dogs for the rescue effort in Concepcion.

Those in their homes in Concepcion lacked electricity. Hundreds faced sleeping in tents on Sunday night.

President Bachelet said her government had reached an agreement with the country's major supermarkets that would allow them to give away for free basic foods they have in stock to those affected by the quake.

The armed forces was available to help with security and the distribution of food, she said.

More than 90 aftershocks had been recorded, ranging from 4.9 to 6.9 in magnitude. A 6.2-magnitude aftershock was recorded near the earthquake's epicenter on Sunday.

The quake struck before dawn Saturday, toppling thousands of houses. The Chilean Red Cross reported that some 500,000 homes sustained considerable damage.

Photos from the quake

Bachelet said Saturday that some 2 million people had been affected in one way or another, but she did not elaborate.

Chile has received many offers of international aid and will accept the help that it needs, Bachelet said. The U.S. military and the U.S. Agency for International Development were working to provide communications support in the form of satellite phones, the State Department said.

"The Chilean government has not yet accepted additional offers of assistance, pending the completion of an assessment of specific needs," State Department spokeswoman Megan Mattson said, noting that Santiago's airport remained closed to foreign aid.

"As soon as the Chilean government establishes additional needs, the United States stands ready to assist in disaster response efforts," she said.

iReport: Are you there? | In Spanish

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will travel to Santiago on Tuesday on a previously scheduled trip through Latin America. She had originally been scheduled to arrive Monday.

Bachelet said she hoped that the airport in Santiago, the capital, would reopen soon to private, public and commercial air traffic. The country's Department of Emergency Management said Sunday that repairs at the airport would take 48 hours.

Why Haiti's less powerful quake was a bigger killer

President-elect Pinera sought to rally spirits in nationally televised remarks Sunday night, announcing a reconstruction plan called "Up With Chile."

"We will raise Chile," he said. "It's not going to be a short task. It's not going to be easy. It will require a lot of effort, a lot of resources, and a lot of time."